"Starting Friday, Walgreens' shoppers can buy an over-the-counter genetics test from Pathway Genomics at 7,500 stores across the country. Priced at $20 to $30, the kit claims to offer information on users' possibility of developing conditions like Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, or diabetes. Access to the scientific analysis online, however, costs another $79 to $179"* [video | 02:31]. "But doctors and geneticists fear the worst for this new over-the-counter access to genetic testing. With no physician to interpret the results of the test, and no FDA regulation of how results are processed or delivered, there is the potential for consumers to misinterpret what their risk really means for their health and their lifestyle."*[more inside]
posted by ericb
on May 11, 2010 -
47 comments

"Con men used to travel town to town hawking medical remedies said to be made of Chinese snakes. Snake oil was useless and dangerous. So the FDA was created to put a stop to it and other food and drug scams. But, today, quack medicine has never been bigger. In the 21st century, snake oil has been replaced by bogus therapies using stem cells. Stem cells may offer cures one day, but medical charlatans on the Internet are making outrageous claims that they can reverse the incurable, from autism to multiple sclerosis to every kind of cancer."* Video Part 1 [13:15] || Part 2 [11:49]. [more inside]
posted by ericb
on Apr 18, 2010 -
33 comments

Foodies, gourmands, and gluttons! Courtesy of those muckrakers at the New York Times, consider this recent op-ed piece. For those still pissed about the Times cheerleading us into Iraq, skip it and just dig this handbook from your federal watchdogs to determine just how much rat shit may have been in those beanie-weenies you enjoyed cold from the can last night at 1:34a.m. Handy alphabetization makes finding your favorite processed foods easy as pie.
posted by barrett caulk
on Feb 14, 2009 -
23 comments

The single-shot Palm Pistol... The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted a conceptual, ergonomic 9mm handgun — designed for people crippled by arthritis, muscular dystrophy, or similar conditions that render them too weak to operate normal handguns — as a Class 1 Medical Device.... doctors could eventually write prescriptions for it and then be reimbursed by Medicare.
posted by blaneyphoto
on Dec 8, 2008 -
61 comments

A nation of outlaws. A century and a half ago, another fast-growing nation had a reputation for sacrificing standards to its pursuit of profit, and it was the United States.
posted by Kirth Gerson
on Aug 27, 2007 -
18 comments

In January 2006, small amounts of genetically engineered rice turned up in a shipment that was tested ... by a French customer of Riceland Foods, a big rice mill based in Stuttgart, Ark. Testing revealed that the genetically modified rice contained a strain of Liberty Link that had not been approved for human consumption. What's more, trace amounts of the Liberty Link had mysteriously made their way into the commercial rice supply in all five of the Southern states where long-grain rice is grown. Aventis Crop Science had contracted with a handful of farmers to grow the rice, which was known as Liberty Link because its genes had been altered to resist a weed killer called Liberty, also made by Aventis. Then, the French pharmaceutical giant that owned Aventis Crop Science decided to sell the U.S. biotech unit and abandon the very emotional business of reengineering the foods we eat. "We didn't want to take any chances," says a former Aventis executive. "We burned and buried enough rice to feed 20 million people." Last November, the USDA retroactively approved the Liberty Link rice for human consumption.
posted by Kirth Gerson
on Jul 23, 2007 -
92 comments

TSA Alert: US Bans Vegemite. Is it because this yeast extract tastes bad? Do the Marmite^ people have some sinister influence? Has Australia offended our government somehow? How is it that a product that has been around for 80 years suddenly becomes forbidden? Who would ban a product that can help prevent neural tube defects (e.g., spina bifida)? Blame the FDA, whose has ruled that folate (folic acid) "should be kept under 1 mg per day ... because higher intake may complicate the diagnosis of pernicious anemia, one form of vitamin B12 deficiency, which especially affects older people." Of course pernicious anemia is rare (less than 10-20 cases/100,000 people per year in the US), as is the Vegemite market. But when has logic ever dictated policy. The international fallout has already started:

"I am never going to America", vows Xochiquetal, while a commenter at Geelong blogger Bernie Slattery’s site foresees US regulators going even further down the road to absurdity, "Americans don’t know what they’re missing … they’ll be banning Tim Tams next."

If the government wanted to ban something Australian, the least they could have done is started here.
posted by scblackman
on Oct 23, 2006 -
47 comments

Feeling sick and thinking of buying over-the-counter cold medicine like Sudafed or Claritin-D? Be prepared to wait in line at the pharmacy counter, show a photo ID, and sign a log book. The nationwide restriction of medication containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine begins this weekend. Why? Those 2 ingredients are used to make meth.. (NPR audio piece).
posted by jaimev
on Sep 27, 2006 -
136 comments

[NewsFilter] A partial victory for public health over politics. Amazingly, the FDA has finally, after 3 years of wrangling, approved over-the-counter sale of Plan B, an emergency contraceptive pill. The victory is partial because you need to be 18 or older to purchase it without a doctor's note. If you're under 18, you need to still have documentation from your physician (or nurse practitioner). The politics behind the approval process were laid bare in this (sincerely) fascinating GAO report [note: links to .pdf file]. I also hope that OTC approval will avoidthis.

"In 2006, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) distributed a 38-question survey to 5,918 FDA scientists to examine the state of science at the FDA. The results paint a picture of a troubled agency: hundreds of scientists reported significant interference with the FDA’s scientific work, compromising the agency’s ability to fulfill its mission of protecting public health and safety."
posted by daksya
on Jul 20, 2006 -
25 comments

This is not good news. U.S. health officials have issued a warning about possible birth defects in infants born to women who take the antidepressant Paxil during the first trimester of pregnancy.
posted by lilboo
on Sep 29, 2005 -
38 comments

Your mother was right. You can go blind from doing that. Federal health officials are examining rare reports of blindness among some men using the impotence drugs Viagra and Cialis. Since it doesn't actually do anything, Enzyte should still be safe.
posted by hipnerd
on May 27, 2005 -
20 comments

Doctors put spotlight on Plan B pill The American Medical Association voiced its support for over-the-counter sales of morning-after birth control, saying the Food and Drug Administration was wrong to reject such sales and urging doctors to write advance prescriptions.
posted by Postroad
on Jun 17, 2004 -
9 comments

"A single test can now reveal the presence of meat from any of 32 different species in food samples, enabling a wide range of important questions to be answered. These include whether chicken has been bulked up with beef or pork extracts; whether expensive albacore tuna is really cheap skipjack tuna; whether rats, mice or even bits of people fell into the mincer when your burger was being made..."
posted by taragl
on Mar 4, 2004 -
15 comments

How much trans fat is in that Devil Dog? The FDA has announced that starting in 2006 food manufacturers must list the number of grams of trans fatty acid -- very bad fat -- on food packages. This is supposed to be a big deal, meant to save lives and billions of bucks. Not so fast. I say, it is a useless addition to the already confusing line-up of numbers on the nutrition panel. Besides, the presence of trans fats is already revealed in ingredients lists on food boxes and wrappers -- look for hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils. But the stuff flies off shelves anyway. I say, if the FDA really wants to tell people how bad these foods are, they should come right out with it. It's time for warning labels on junk food. THIS PRODUCT CAUSES OBESITY. THIS PRODUCT WILL CLOG YOUR ARTERIES. THIS PRODUCT MAY LEAD TO HEART DISEASE AND DEATH.
posted by jellybuzz
on Jul 10, 2003 -
62 comments

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